Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Congressman Trent Franks (AZ-02) issues the following statement today regarding controversy over his remarks made at the "Take Back America" Conference this last weekend in St. Louis, MO:

"My recent comment regarding President Obama was specifically related to the President's policies on abortion. For that reason I should certainly have said 'UNBORN humanity.'

"To be clear, my impression of President Obama is that of a man with genuine noble impulses. When I first met him in the White House, he was very warm and civil to me and I certainly tried to genuinely return that civility. I handed him an "Open Letter" at the time, published in Human Events on the day of his inauguration, pleading with him as he was sworn in on the Lincoln Bible to consider the plight of the unborn and to realize, as Lincoln did with slavery, the plight of a forgotten portion of our society even if the Supreme Court has labeled them as less than human, as they did with slaves in the Dred Scott decision.

"But the fact remains yet today that President Obama has quickly established himself and his Presidency as the most radically pro-abortion Administration in American history." Franks stated.

"Since his days in the Illinois State legislature, President Obama has established himself who not only passively, but actively, passionately opposed to protecting the innocent unborn. He even took to the floor of the State Senate to speak against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act -- the only Senator to do so -- which would have protected living, breathing, crying babies who were born alive as the result of a botched abortion. President Obama fought against a bill that would have given those children medical care instead of leaving them to die in soiled utility rooms.

"Since then, the now-President Obama has maintained his radical pro-abortion stance. Only three days after taking office, he overturned the Mexico City policy in order to allow taxpayerdollars go to fund overseas abortions. He has subsequently continued to surround himself with the staunchly, overtly pro-choice political appointees, including Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, who had deep ties to the infamous late term abortionist George Tiller, and Science Advisor John Holdren, who has written favorably about forced abortions. The President has also increased funding for the UNFPA, the UN population agency that supports the Chinese 'one-child policy' including forced abortions and forced sterilizations, and the Obama Administration has promoted an unlimited right to abortion at a United Nations meeting.

"These are just a few of the items in President Obama's expanding pro-abortion resume despite his claim that the issue of when life begins is "above his pay grade." Similarly, the President's health care plan, as it stands, will also include hidden taxpayer subsidies of abortion, the largest federal expansion of abortion-on-demand in America since Roe vs. Wade.

"While I absolutely should have made the meaning of my statement more clear, the facts remain that these radical pro-abortion policies do not have place in a government founded on the principle that all men are created equal, and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights," and chief among those rights is the right to life. Without that right, no others matter."

Note: Congressman Franks' "open letter" to President Obama was published in Human Events on January 20, 2009, on the day of the President's inauguration. The article can be accessed here: http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=30329